Fluent Radical

Excuse that last enormous post.

Why Direct Democracy’s Ideas are so great for the country:

The Problem of Blairism.

They have correctly analysed the problem, which is the command
state. Articulating the problem with Blairism is something that we
have hitherto been unable to, instead simply promising to do it better.

Actual Alternatives

They propose an alternative to a targets culture. Restoring democracy
by truly empowering the local communities over planning, some social
programmes, the police.

Constitutional Reforms

They propose reforms to strengthen Parliament at the expense of the
Executive. Is there anyone who thinks this is other than a no-brainer?
Everyone knows the PM is too powerful. But if everyone knows this, why
was it not in our manifesto? Because we want power, and not to improve
our country.

Political Disconnection

There are a good 35% of eligible voters who do not consider there to
be any point in voting. We are accustomed to thinking that there is
something wrong with them, but is there? There is not a person in the
south-east who really welcomes the plan to build x,000 new homes
there. But this doesn’t matter, because the decision isn’t up to them,
it’s up to the Deputy PM and the regional development quango. There is
a deficit in the democratic control of government, and this is
reflected entirely rationally in the declining number of voters. We
have an obligation to return powers for that which affects communities
to those communities.

Why they are so great for the party:

Popularity

In many respects these reforms are going to be wildly popular. If we
commit to giving local communities powers over the siting of mobile
phone masts, powers over the opening/closing of community hospitals
and powers over policing priorities we will pick up a lot of votes. We
stand a good chance of picking up the votes of those mentioned above,
who do not vote because they see no reason.

Positivity

They provide a ‘positive’ agenda for reform, rather than a negative
one. If we are indeed, “the Nasty party”, then this is
desirable. Rather than a ragbag of policies unified only by a hatred
of Blair and a desire to win power, we have an optimistic
narrative that spells out how we want to transform our country and
why. Our other policies will stem from these ideas, and we do not have
to move very far to get there, as shown in the next point.

A Big Tent

These reforms transcend the debate between left and right,
Traditionalist and Moderniser now going on within the party. These
reforms would unite the party:

Classical liberals will respect the constitutional reforms to
strengthen parliament. This will also help convince people we want to
do a job and not just win power. If we go into the next election
promising to take power away from ourselves if we win, that’s
something different to the usual politician’s in it for themselves
message.

School vouchers and patient passports become not about fleeing the
state sector but about giving people power over their own services. As
part of this larger message they are transformed from an apparently
negative, ‘wrecking’, agenda into something that stems from our
principled, and optimistic narrative.

The law and order types within the Conservative Party should be
supporters of these reforms. If an elected sheriff stood up and said
we need to improve the self-esteem of local thugs by sending them on
courses, do you think he would get elected a second time?

Euro-scepticism is made respectable again. Today we are ‘ranters’ and
xenophobes who just want to say NO to the future. If we are commited
to a positive agenda of returning powers to communities then we oppose
the EU because it stands square against that. And I believe people
would grasp eagerly any opportunity to oppose the EU while retaining
the moral high ground.

The small-staters should be ecstatic. If power and money is devolved
downwards, no councillor is going to stand on a policy of 1% on top of
local taxes to pay for a department of diversity outreach
officers. The connection between services and taxes will be
strengthened and made clearer, and tax competition between counties
would do the rest.

Conservative Revival

We talk a lot about the need to grow the Party at the grassroots
level. But wishing does not make it so. If we commit to these reforms,
I believe that voters will choose Conservatives to implement
them. Power devolved to all levels of government would
revitalise local politics, and our Party’s position with it.

Conclusion

It is instructive to notice that New Labour also talks about
“empowering communities”. I don’t think they mean it. They mean
directing central funding at local programmes, they mean allowing
people to elect mayors with next to no powers, or setting up regional
quangoes to ‘consult’ on initiatives, but they don’t mean devolving
any real say over services and taxes.

D.D. note that the Republican Party transformed itself from a moribund
organisation in the 60s to a party that just keeps winning by
supporting states rights, community rights, and genuinely standing for
smaller government. Smaller in terms of power, not money.

This is not something the Party has been good at in the past. We are
seen to be even more the party of central government than Labour,
which is one reason why we don’t pick up so many anti-politician
votes. But these reforms stem from traditional conservative principles
of small, accountable government and personal and community
responsibility. We should support them wholeheartedly.

As has been said by others before, this is actually a pretty conservative country. This is why we don’t need to worry about devolving power to local councils.

Consider: A council candidate that proposes to employ a real-nappy coordinator, at an explicit increase of 0.5% in the local tax bill.

Is this going to happen?

Consider: A candidate for sheriff says that local criminals are just misunderstood, and proposes self-esteem courses.
Is this guy going to get elected?

Nuh-huh. We would like to fire all the real-nappy coordinators and the diversity outreach officers and all the rest. But if we propose that then someone will say: “But don’t you want diversity?” and amazingly, this will work. If we say: “we want to devolve power over diversity to the local level”, they can’t say we’re against diversity, only that we’re for localism.

Then when the councils fire all the bureaucrats, that’s democracy in action.
And if they don’t, that’s their prerogative. But the power will be there for people to decide.

Direct Democracy propose replacing VAT with a Local Sales Tax. Essentially, County Councils would set their own rates of sales tax and the money would be entirely their own resource to do with as they wish. D.D. point out that VAT recipts and local government grants are very similar in size, so a straight switch is possible.

BUT, given that D.D. are proposing many other devolutions of power to the local level, including crime budgets, some social security and welfare programmes, surely the local councils are going to need a lot more money than they are getting now? A local sales tax probably wouldn’t cut it.

I don’t think this is an insuperable problem. Certainly in the beginning there is no reason why local government has to administer taxes as well as set rates. It would be simple to instruct the Revenue to apply a different rate depending on the postcode of the individual/business in question, and for that money to be directed to local government as their ‘own resources’ of a sort. This means that the objection over how difficult it would be for local government to collect an income tax is irrelevant, and with an income tax the devolved programmes can be paid for.

The LibDems crashed and burned with a local income tax proposal, mainly because it was seen as just an extra tax. However, if powers are devolved, there is no reason income tax can’t also be, as long as national rates are reduced accordingly.

Localism can be a big tent for the Conservative Party. It can unify us around a common theme.

Low-tax tories,
classical liberals,
school voucher supporters,
patient choice supporters,
law and order types,
Euro-sceptics.

All these points of view fit naturally into a broader conservative theme of empowering communities and people.

These guys know where it’s at, and I’m going to cheerlead for them from here on in.

When we say:
“This is a bad result for the Party, we need to have a debate on what we stand for.”
we mean:
“This is a bad result for Britain, and we’re going to try harder to show you why.”

When we say:
“We must convince voters we care for the disadvantaged.”
we mean:
“We have always cared for the disadvantaged.”

Question: why do the presidential primaries in the US not happen immediately after the election?

Answer:

• why choose someone four years ahead of time, when you do not know what the political environment will be like then?
• why choose your next leader in the aftermath of a defeat?
• why stake all your issues for four years so much on one man?

so given this, why do the UK parties select who they are going to run in the next election immediately after they’ve just lost the previous?

Proposal: the Parliamentary Party should select a leader now, who can represent them and lead the party. Then, a year before the next election, the party membership should choose a shadow PM to run. Who can be (and may well be) the Parliamentary Leader.

If Mandelson’s job as Commissioner for Trade is to stop trade not to promote it, maybe we should start worrying about the commissioners for:

• Enterprise and Industry,
• Justice, Freedom and Security
• The Environment